My initial, knee-jerk reaction, following the mental math as I counted back on a calendar to calculate how many days and weeks into my pregnancy I could be, was to surf the Internet for information about the first trimester. I estimated that I was maybe six weeks along, give or take. I oohed and aahed over the various facts I read. For instance, my baby was roughly the size of a lentil (about a quarter of an inch long), rampant hormones cause mood swings, and spotting early in pregnancy is normal…but is also sometimes the first sign of a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy. This leads me to the number one thing I wish someone had told me about miscarriages before I had one.
No. 1) Miscarriage only truly enters your mind after it has happened once already.
Despite the warnings on every baby-to-be website and knowledge I picked up over the years, I was blissfully ignorant that anything could go wrong in the beginning. Believe me, I read over and over about the high chance of miscarriage during the first trimester, especially when it is your first pregnancy. For some reason though, I just didn’t comprehend. It’s similar to times when you’re driving down a long road and suddenly realize that you have no clue about the last few miles of your journey, almost as if you’re on auto pilot because you are too deep in thought about something else. My eyes saw “miscarriage,” but I was so caught up in the idea of being pregnant that my heart and brain did not perceive it to be something I was actually at risk for.
No. 2) Miscarriages do not always have symptoms.
“How could this be the fate of my baby? I didn’t have any symptoms!”
There are numerous possible symptoms attached to the word “miscarriage” — severe cramping, bleeding, fever, you name it. However, the fact of the matter is, some women never experience the typical, tell-tale signs. I was one of those women. My husband, stepmother, and I went into my first prenatal ultrasound expecting to see a healthy, squirming jelly bean. In reality, the flat screen television monitor displayed an all too still embryo that stopped developing at 7 weeks, 4 days. The unsuspecting blow, I believe, only made finding out about our loss that much harder to deal with emotionally. My husband and I just didn’t see it coming.
No. 3) Medical professionals, especially OB-GYN staff, are not sympathetic to the nature of their job; pregnancy loss is not a shock to them.
While I wasn’t quite expecting my doctor to let me cry on his shoulder, or explain the sad truth in a sugar-coated way, the bluntness of his words were bullets. He dove straight to the point, saying, “Yes, there is something wrong. Very wrong,” as the ultrasound probe investigated my lifeless baby. He continued, “You have several options for removal: D&C, D&E and have a lab diagnose the fetal remains, or have a natural miscarriage at home, though I don’t recommend that.” (My husband and I decided to name him Elijah Zaine after DNA testing from the D&E confirmed he was a boy.) There was no positive reassurance that things will get better, no “I’m sorry for your loss.” Instead, I was all but blamed for my miscarriage, as the doctor later stated I was too young and had too low of a body mass index to have a healthy pregnancy. But, hey, at least his midwife handed me tissues as I shed a waterfall of tears on the exam table.
- Note– Based solely off my personal experiences: If you and your significant other are not married, do not plan on the doctor(s) treating your partner as anything but a person that just so happens to be standing in the room. The medical staff treated my then-boyfriend, now-husband, as merely the person who I made the mistake of pregnancy with. Granted, I was only eighteen at the time, he and I still found it to be unsettling. My doctor did not take any of his questions or concerns in a serious manner and certainly did not respect him as the father of our baby.
No. 4) Men just don’t seem to understand, but in a way, they kind of do.
Although my poor husband desperately wanted to comfort my sobbing and tried his hardest to be there for me emotionally, it felt nearly impossible. He grieved in his own manner, as I did the same, which caused a significant amount of stress that made our relationship temporarily suffer. The late nights having used to be spent talking about hopes and dreams were now blanketed with deafening silence. We wanted to express our feelings with one another, but struggled to find the right words to say, if there was even anything to say at all. I wanted to mourn our baby while he wanted to move on from it. At the time, I chalked up his insensitivity toward my feelings to him being a man. Looking back now, I wish I truly realized that he lost a baby, too. Every night that I cried myself to sleep, he laid beside me and knew there wasn’t a way to heal my heart. And that only made his hurt all the more.
No. 5) There is a cultural silence surrounding the taboo subject of pregnancy loss.
Regardless of how alone you may feel, you’re really not. Statistically speaking, one out of every four women suffer from the secret heartache that is of miscarriage. Yet, oddly enough, no one really discusses it. Many believe it is because a large portion of miscarriages occur prior to 12-13 weeks and it is a commonly held belief that expectant parents should wait until after the first trimester to make a pregnancy announcement. Therefore, women who lost a baby during this “in case something goes wrong” time period are not comfortable coming out to the world that they were pregnant, and it sadly ended. Personally, I would most likely have been standing right alongside these women if my loss had not happened on October 15, also known as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I felt the compulsive need to honour Elijah on a day that was just for him and all other babies gone too soon.
It was also relieving to announce the passing of my son because many other family relatives, friends, and even strangers reached out to me with similar experiences. It was comforting to know that I was not alone, and that really helped my grieving process. One day that I will never forget after my miscarriage was the day I decided to get a tattoo in memory of Elijah. The design was a simple blue heart inside a larger heart to symbolize that I will forever carry his heart in mine. Once it was finished, the artist lifted his shirt to show me a tattoo of his own; it was a sleeping baby with wings. My heart burst.
No. 6) For early miscarriages, there is more to grieve than the loss of a pregnancy.
You grieve for every ultrasound you won’t have of that baby, every heart rate the Doppler won’t pick up, and every cute outfit you now have no reason to buy. I would say that it runs much deeper than that, too. You grieve for the baby that won’t be coming home with you. You grieve for all the firsts he or she will never experience — birthday, wobbly steps, day of kindergarten, love and heart break, graduation, and seeing them hold a child of their very own. During the healing process, it helped to remind myself that I will see my son again. Somehow, someway, Elijah, his father, and I will be reunited.
No. 7) It’s unbelievably hard to be happy for other expectant mothers because it hurts so much that it isn’t you.
Within the one week of finding out that my husband and I we were pregnant, several other family members and acquaintances announced the same news. Each of us were due in the end of May, just a day or two apart. That made watching their baby bumps grow while my empty womb stayed small incredibly difficult. Having to fake countless smiles during dinner conversations about impending pregnancy milestones or births, while I was grieving the very thing that they had, broke my already shattered heart into many more pieces. Even after becoming pregnant again a few months later, I still felt pangs of jealousy and anger that I didn’t have a baby to bring home in May, like it seemed everyone else did. For this reason, I also avoided baby showers as if they were the plague, despite having another little one on the way. This is normal. My advice in this situation is to focus on yourself, putting your own feelings first and foremost.
No. 8) Seeing other mothers taking pregnancy or living children for granted will make your blood boil (okay, maybe a slight exaggeration).
Being a young mother well connected on social media subjected me to a lot of posts, pictures, and comments that brought my anger from zip to a full blown ten in no time flat. I passed silent judgment (not so silent now) on parents from all over the spectrum — young, old, newbie first-timers, naive, physically or emotionally unavailable, and downright lousy.
“She smoked throughout her entire pregnancy, so why does she get to have a healthy baby and I can’t?”
“She ordered her eggs over easy? Doesn’t she realize the risk of salmonella and how that could affect babies in utero!”
“They announced their pregnancy before twelve weeks! They didn’t have an ultrasound yet!”
Wrong of me? Completely and utterly irrational? Yes, I am well aware, but I’m sure those who lost a baby or suffer from recurrent miscarriages will understand exactly where I’m coming from. And if I do happen to be alone in this, at least I get points for honesty. It is just painful right down to my core to be out in the world, then see men and women who fail to realize that the greatest gift of all –life they created– is held in their arms.
No. 9) The innocence and joy of pregnancy will only ever be a distant memory.
The pregnancy after my loss (another boy named Zaiden!) drove me crazy with anxiety and fear. No matter how many times I reminded myself, “This is a different pregnancy with a different baby and a different outcome,” I still bit my nails every time his kick count came up short, the midwife didn’t find his heartbeat with the Doppler immediately, or I forgot to take my prenatal vitamin on schedule. My short-lived, first pregnancy was spent counting down the days until my dating ultrasound scan, ready to burst at the seams with excitement to see my little one. The adrenaline rush of getting a big fat positive on the window of my second pregnancy test several months later, too, was short-lived. After hearing, “There is no heartbeat,” I built a wall around myself to keep my hopes and expectations of bringing a baby home low. Instead of crying happy tears, my eyes were flooded with horrid flashbacks of my angel baby, Elijah, during his only ultrasound as I scheduled a prenatal appointment for my second pregnancy. Even after seeing Zaiden’s heartbeat on the monitor a dozen times, I couldn’t shake the overwhelming feeling that something could still go wrong.
No. 10) In a warped way, you will be grateful for your loss because only then do you understand how precious life is.
Although morning sickness was really not that fun (or in the morning), I was thankful for the constant queasiness because that meant things were still chugging along. Making it to the second trimester was a serious achievement like none other. Hitting the milestone of viability at 24 weeks became a matter to celebrate until the cows came home. Planning a baby shower was like rolling out the red carpet for the arrival of my second son, Zaiden. And the absolute greatest thing of all to date: seeing his heart beat away during ultrasounds did not once fail to bring tears to my eyes.
Miracle of Motherhood 